Thanks for your help.

I have long wondered whether the ‘moral high ground’ that Slowhands refers to was facilitated by the introduction of certificates in 1837; the ‘ground’ did get ‘higher’ towards the end of the century.

In earlier centuries, people rarely ventured more than a few miles from their villages and everyone would know whether a couple had married and whether their children were legitimate or not. By the early Nineteenth Century, transport links were much improved and people travelled more. So who would know if a couple that moved from Staffordshire to the Forest and had a family were married or not (Some of my ancestors did and were!). After 1837, couples seeking to have a child baptised could be asked to show their marriage certificate.

In his ‘English Social History’, Trevelyan introduces another factor – religious discrimination: “By the Marriage Act of 1753, no one could be legally married except by a Church of England parson, an intolerable insult to the religious feelings of Protestant dissenters and still more of Roman Catholics. The Act of 1836 permitted religious ceremonies in Catholic or Protestant places of worship, that should be legally binding if notified to the Registrar.”

The large movement of population to the towns and cities caused by the Industrial Revolution may have necessitated a more ordered society, including the ‘moral high ground’. The two factors mentioned above should perhaps just be regarded as part of this process.